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Elderly couple evicted from their home after 407 extension battle

Following a two-year fight, the Kapostins family home for over 50 years will be reduced to rubble after the elderly couple was evicted Friday to make way for the 407 extension.

Antons (Tony) Kapostins, 90, says the province's plan to slice a 1/2 acre from his 14-acre Ajax farm for the Hwy. 407 expansion will force him from his home and leave the rest of his property landlocked. (DAVID COOPER / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)

Andy Kapostins tries to reach his brother by phone late Saturday morning after Durham Regional Police officers told him his family would have one opportunity to enter the Ajax home of his parents Antons and Gaida. The couple was evicted Friday after a two-year fight to save their home from being expropriated for the 407 extension came to an end. (ANDREW LIVINGSTONE / TORONTO STAR) | Order this photo

Andy Kapostins showed up at his parents’ home late Saturday morning to collect personal belongings from the home he grew up in.

Soon it will be a pile of rubble.

After a more than two-year fight by Antons Kapostins, 90, to save the home from demolition to make way for the Highway 407 extension the battle ended when he and his wife were evicted Friday.

The irate Ajax resident says he’ll survive the loss. His parents, however, are devastated after the frail elderly couple was removed from the home for good by police, hours after Antons refused to leave.

“This is the end,” an emotional Andy said after speaking to two Durham Regional Police officers. “They wanted to finish their last days here. This was their home.”

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Police told the younger Kapostins that family members would be allowed entry only once to retrieve any personal belongings.

“You can’t keep coming in and out of the house one at a time,” a female officer told Andy, who became visibly upset during their five-minute conversation.

Escorted out on a stretcher Friday, the elder Kapostins, 90, was still in hospital Saturday when the Star spoke with his son. Kapostins wife Gaida, 88, who was led from the home by police using a walker, was staying at a nearby residence.

It took police hours to get the couple to leave the home. Antons wouldn’t leave the house and said he wanted $9 million to do so, shooting down the latest offer from the Ministry of Transportation of $600,000.

According to CTV News, police told Antons they had to leave. His response to officers was, “if you want to take me out without paying me $9 million, you shoot me here.”

Andy, a truck driver who had just returned from a work trip to find his parents without their home, doesn’t understand how they can evict his parents without having reached a settlement.

Served with an eviction notice ordered by the Superior Court, the battle to save the bungalow Antons built with his bare hands on their 13-acre property after buying it in 1962 is almost over.

Reaching a settlement is the last step that will end the family’s legacy on the property. However, Andy said if they don’t get a fair offer from the government for the remaining land (nearly 13 acres) they’ll keep it despite being told they won’t have road access to it.

One offer was about $400,000 for the expropriated land and $15,000 per acre for the rest of the property, Andy added.

“I don’t care,” he said. “We’ll hold onto the land if we have to. They won’t sell until they get what they feel they deserve.”

The ministry has said previously it has made repeated buyout offers, based on three independent property appraisals, for the land needed to reconstruct an interchange at Lake Ridge Rd. and Highway 401.

The last of 342 properties needed for the first phase of construction, which began this spring and is expected to be completed by 2014

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